USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 31
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ment and conviction, and was ever ready to amend and correct any error or mistake. He always consulted the best light accessible, and the measure of his ambition was full when he became satisfied that he had reached correct conclusions. He was always pleasant and affable to the practitioner before his court, whether on or off the bench. In the days of recon- struction, when the military assumed to be superior to civil authority, he had the firmness to repel and rebuke the dictation and orders of military and department commanders. One fact, one act in his life ought not to be omitted, as it illustrates the integrity of the man. His environment during the war neces- sitated his doing many things which outwardly did not com- port with the stern duty of a loyal man, in consequence of which, when elevated to the supreme bench, he would not accept and qualify until congress passed an act removing any and all supposed disabilities, although his Unionism was never questioned. He yet has the harness on, and is in partnership with his talented son.
Ex-GOVERNOR WILLIAM R. MILLER.
Governor William R. Miller was born at Batesville, Inde- pendence county, Arkansas, November 23, 1823, of Scotch- Irish extraction. His strong and marked individuality of char- acter is typical of his lineage. He worked on his father's farm until twenty years of age, at intervals attending the primitive log-cabin schools then in vogue. He has always been popular, was elected clerk of Independence county when only twenty- five years old in 1848, again in 1850, and again in 1852, serv- ing his county in that capacity six years. In 1854 he resigned the office of clerk to accept an election by the legislature to the office of State auditor. In 1855 Governor Conway, knowing the executive ability of the young man, appointed him accountant of the Real Estate Bank. The legislature again elected and re-elected him auditor of State in 1856, 1858, 1860 and 1862, and he was again elected to that office under the Murphy govern- ment and constitution of 1864, but he was disfranchised and declared ineligible under the constitution of 1868. He com- menced reading law in 1848, and at all times when official duties permitted, zealously kept it up for twenty years. In 1868,
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EX-GOV. WILLIAM R. MILLER.
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when he was reconstructed out of office, he was admitted to the bar in Little Rock and returned to Batesville, his old home, and there practiced his profession until 1874, when he again became the candidate of the democratic party, before the peo- ple, for the office of auditor, and was elected by a large majority. In 1876 and in 1878 he was the democratic candidate for gov- ernor, and was each time elected by large majorities.
A detail of these simple facts is more effective than the pen - of the historian in conveying to the reader an idea of the esti- mation in which the people of the State hold their only native- born governor. His administrations succeeded that of Gover- nor Garland, and it devolved on him to carry out the many wise measures inaugurated by the democratic party after the State and people were emancipated from the odious thraldom imposed by a set of unscrupulous political adventurers during the years of pillage and plunder, misnamed "reconstruction era." Each of his administrations was eminently successful and satisfactory to the people. His public speeches, inaugurals and messages belong to the history of the State, and their con- sideration is not within the scope of this work. Governor Miller is not an orator, but is a fluent, terse spoken, close reasoner, and is much better known as a politician than as a lawyer. His popularity has always rested upon his integrity and execu- tive ability, qualities accorded him alike by friends and foes. In January, 1881, he retired to private life, but the democ- racy of the State, in convention assembled in June, 1886, again demanded his services, nominated and elected him to the office of auditor the eighth time. No man in the State has ever been honored oftener by his fellow citizens or held a firmer hold on the popular heart. He always manifested the courage of his convictions on public questions, without waiting for the political weather-cock to point out the tides and currents of public opinion. He is first cousin to that eminent lawyer, James M. Curran, their mothers being sisters.
OSCAR L. MILES, BENTONVILLE.
Oscar L. Miles was born in Granger county, Tennessee, Oc- tober 16, 1854, but removed in early life to Virginia, where he was raised and educated. He led the van of all his classes
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from the village school to the graduating classes at Emory and Henry College, where he was graduated in the classics, with distinguished honors and great promise, in June, 1876. At this eminent seat of learning the ambitious young man entered the contest for the "Best Debater's Medal," and the "Robinson Prize Medal " for oratory, and was awarded each medal over many of the most brilliant youths of the south. In September, 1876, he settled in Logan county, Arkansas, and taught school the greater part of the two succeeding years. Whilst engaged thus, he utilized, and to the utmost econo- mized, all of his time and resources in laying the foundation for admission and advancement in the legal profession, and was admitted in October, 1878. The same studious, methodi- cal application and progressive development which character- ized his boyhood and youth are now the handmaids of his pro- fessional career, and are making and fitting him for useful and distinguished position His mind and his habits have been well trained for analytical research, and he is a good reasoner. He commands the universal respect of his brothers at the bar. The undeveloped and unknown future must finish the biogra- phy of this worthy and promising young man.
EDGAR E. BRYANT, FORT SMITH.
Edgar E., son of Doctor A. A. Bryant, was born in Paris, Lafayette county, Mississippi, on the 9th of December, 1861, and is of Scotch-Irish extraction. His fifth ancestor of the paternal line emigrated from Scotland before the revolutionary war, and settled in Westmoreland county, Virginia, and two generations before that his maternal ancestors emigrated from Ireland and settled in the same county. William Cullen Bryant, the poet, is descended from the same ancestry. His ancestors in both lines furnished soldiers for the colonial armies who fought under Washington in the war of Independ- ence. When the boy was five years old the family moved to Coffeeville, Mississippi, where he attended the common schools of the town until he was fifteen years old. In 1877 he entered the sophomore class in the University of Mississippi, and grad- uated in 1880. In the fall of 1880 he matriculated in the law department of Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee,
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ELECTRO LIGHT
OSCAR L. MILES.
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for a two-years course, but by energetic application and force of native talent of high order, graduated at the head of his class and achieved the first honors in one year. In the fall of 1881 he entered the post-graduate class of Columbian Law Uni- versity at Washington city, D. C., and graduated in one year. In the winter of 1882 he moved to Columbus, Mississippi, and practiced law there for several months, but was not satisfied, and in August, 1883, moved to Fort Smith, where he still resides. Mr. Bryant, physically, is quite small, and is the pet of the profession - has black hair, rounded features, and a piercing black eye. Perhaps no man of his age possesses finer command of language, and with that he also possesses logical and analytical processes of high order - a combination rarely found. In him the orator is wedded to the demonstrating logi- cian -great and powerful factors in the forensic forum or the senate. The young man's future lies invitingly before him -; fame and distinction await him. If he lives thirty years his biographer will verify these predictions.
THOMAS B. LATHAM, FORT SMITH.
Thomas B. Latham was born December 22, 1862, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and is of English descent. His father was born in Virginia of an old colonial family who settled there long anterior to the revolution. His mother is a lineal descendant from the great orator and patriot, Patrick Henry. Mr. Latham's father settled at Fort Smith in 1849 and was a prominent citi- zen and useful, public-spirited man all his life. The young man obtained a good English education in the local schools of the city. After quitting school at eighteen years of age, he was appointed chief deputy clerk in the United States court for the western district of Arkansas, and acted in that capacity for three years, and then as now enjoyed the confidence and esteem of Judge Parker of that court, and all others with whom he comes either in business or social contact. He borrowed books and read law carefully and assiduously about three years, and was admitted to the bar on his own motion in September, 1885. He has the courage of his convictions on all questions, and indulges a sovereign contempt for the policy-serving trim- mer who never has or expresses an opinion until he first ascer-
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tains the views of the majority. An element of success is strongly indicated in the pertinacity with which he pursues an object once deliberately formed. Not long since a city bully presented an outrageous account against him for $30, pretend- edly advanced to a laborer to whom Mr. Latham had given an order for $1.50. "I will pay the amount of my order and no more," he said, to which the blustering bully replied : "If you don't pay the $30 I will whip it out of you." "If you do I will give you $500. Where can I find you in ten minutes ? Get ready. No bully can scare or run over me. I will be in · front of your business house in ten minutes." All bullies are cowards and when they become alarmed fear unmans and makes cravens of them. Tommy (his pet name) went with his spurs on and paced up and down the pavement in front of the crav- en's house for an hour, waiting for him to come out, but he was locked up in the counting-room trembling with fear and did not put in an appearance, preferring to let that engagement go by default. It requires a much higher order of courage to retract and apologize to one whom we have injured, than to fight or appeal to physical courage; the degree is measured by the dis- tance between moral and physical agencies. Mr. Latham pos- sesses the higher order of courage in a marked degree and gave practical illustration of it not long since in court in a contest between himself and the author.
HON. SAMUEL W. PEEL, BENTONVILLE.
In 1814 a colony of emigrants consisting of four families settled at Batesville, in the territory of Missouri, now the county seat of Independence county, Arkansas. This colony was supplemented in 1815 by the addition of fifteen families from Kentucky. These early pioneer families have furnished Arkansas with prominent historic characters, and a record ought to be preserved. In the colony of 1814 came Simon Miller, the father of John, who is the father of ex-Governor William R. Miller; came also John Moore, an educated, influ- ential Irishman, with wife and three daughters, all educated and refined ; and came also the Magnesses and the Beans. In the colony of 1815 (all from Kentucky) came Richard Peel, John Peel, Thomas Peel and James Peel, all sons of Thomas
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Peel, an emigrant from Ireland to Virginia, and from thence to Kentucky with Daniel Boone. Richard Peel was the father of John W. Peel, the father of Samuel W., the subject of this sketch. In this colony also came Thomas Curran, an educated emigrant from Ireland, and a near relation to John Philpot Curran, the great Irish orator. Old Ben Hardin, the hero of many Indian wars, and his brother Joab, with their families, and William Griffin, Thomas Wyatt and William Martin, who married old Ben's daughters, and Samuel Elvin, James Akin, John Reed, James Miller and John B. Craig, all good citizens ; came in this colony, and made Batesville the Athens of the territory. There are always on the border and outskirts of civilization a bad class of men; this class infested, and became the bane of Batesville for a while, but were soon driven off and banished by the colonists after their arrival in 1815. John Miller married the daughter of John Moore, who is the mother of our ex-governor.
Samuel W., the son of John W. Peel, was born on his father's farm near Batesville, Independence county, the 13th of September, 1831, and was educated in the English branches at Batesville. He was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy,. was a colonel in her armnies, and participated in the battles of Wilson's creek, Prairie Grove and many other engagements. After the war he read law in the office of Judge J. M. Pitt- man, his brother-in-law, and was admitted to the bar in 1866. In 1873 he was elected prosecuting attorney for the fourth circuit. In 1882 he was elected to the forty-eighth congress, and has since twice succeeded himself. He is a good lawyer, fine debater, and popular with his constituents. His wife is sister to Senator Berry.
SOLOMON F. CLARK, LITTLE ROCK.
Solomon F. Clark was born in Groton, New York, on the 13th of February, 1819. In the paternal line he is descended from the ancient pilgrims of New England, a line that fur- nished many soldiers to the Indian and revolutionary wars. His grandfather, Jesse Clark, was one of three brothers, who all shared in the glories of Bunker Hill. In the maternal line he is descended from Irish Protestants, who left Ireland to
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avoid the intolerant persecutions of the bigoted James II, of England. Solomon Foote, a senator in congress from Ver- mont, Henry S. Foote, a senator in congress from Mississippi, and Commodore Foote of the United States navy, are kindred descendants in the mother's line. The cross between the hardy, resolute pilgrim, and the no-less-determined Celt, imparts a high degree of self-confidence, adequate to the task of any un- dertaking, however difficult, and often to great achievement. From this combination of national streams, spring bold, orig- inal thinkers in science, politics and religion, impatient of theological dogma and arbitrary creeds, and rebellious against the assertion of political power not clearly recognized in or- ganic sanctions. Starting with this knowledge of the roots and prominent peculiarities of the two nationalities represented in Brother Clark, and the influences which attended his growth to manhood, we can easily comprehend the product. His father was passionately fond of that rational and intel- lectual enjoyment found in the pursuit and possession of knowledge, and indulged the passion until it dwarfed his capacity to accumulate money. This threw his son on his own resources at an early age in life, and imparted to him one of the most important of all lessons - a knowledge of the practi- cal affairs and relations of life.
The superficial observer regards this rugged discipline as a misfortune, but it has made a thousand men to where it has dwarfed one, and has given to the world four-fifths of the men who move and control its affairs. The history of the world, with the record of its self-made men blotted out, would be a reflection of the dark ages. At the early age of twelve the young man became a canal boy, and followed the avocation on the various lines in western New York and Pennsylvania until nineteen years of age, passing through all the stages of promo- tion in that service, because of his worth and devotion to busi- ness. During the winter months, when the canals were frozen up in that rigorous climate, he attended school, improving each passing hour with commendable economy and application. He passed from the common schools of Syracuse, to the high-school academy at Groton, teaching school at intervals to obtain the means to prosecute his studies. In 1843 he was promoted to the high and honorable professorship of mathematics in Cort-
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land Academy, New York. His foundations were thus slowly, surely and solidly laid for life.
He now commenced laying the foundations of his legal at- tainments with the same patient and resolute tenacity displayed in the acquisition of an education. At the end of one year he resigned the professorship of mathematics and moved to Laporte, Indiana, where he taught school and read law three years, at the end of which time he was admitted to the bar and came immediately to Arkansas, locating at Fort Smith, where he remained from 1847 to 1861. He was neutral in the war between the States, but his convictions were with the Union element. He moved to Ottumwa, Iowa, at the com- mencement of the war and remained there until the occupation of Little Rock, in 1864, by the Federal forces, after which he moved to Little Rock, since his permanent home.
The foundations of our railroad system were laid in 1853, when the legislature chartered the Cairo and Fulton railroad, with the Memphis and Little Rock road and the Little Rock and Fort Smith road as branches. The legislature appointed him commissioner to open books and receive subscriptions to the stock of this system, which he accepted, and became a very earnest and important promoter of railroads in Arkansas. He was long attorney for the Little Rock and Fort Smith road, and once its president. He has always avoided politics, being too straight-forward and blunt to ever acquire any of the arts of the politician. He commenced life a believer in the doc- trines of the old whig party, but the patchwork involved in the compromise measures of 1850 drove him into the democratic ranks. From 1874 to 1878 he was chairman of the democratic central committee. A bold and original thinker, he disdains confinement to the narrow stereotyped limits embraced in or- thodox creeds, takes a bolder sweep and wider range, and views God as the grand aggregation of the mighty and infinite system of worlds and laws we call the universe. The widest liberty of thought, investigation and opinion is the text from which his life has been acted. A good lawyer, a good citizen, in all he does he believes he is right, and adheres to his convictions with great tenacity.
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HON. THOMAS FLETCHER, LITTLE ROCK.
Honest Tom Fletcher is a name known to every household in Arkansas for more than a quarter of a century past. This pet name is the reward of his honest, straight-forward conduct in all the relations of life. Henry L. Fletcher, his father, a native of Tennessee, immigrated to " The French Purchase " in 1815, and located in the political designation now known as Randolph county, Arkansas, where his son Thomas was born on the 8th of April, 1819. In 1825 the family moved to Pulaski county, where the son grew to manhood on a farm, industriously dis- charging the varied duties pertaining to active and thrifty agricultural pursuits. Educational facilities were meager then compared to what they are now, and did not extend beyond the log-cabin facilities in the vicinage. But these rudimental advantages were expanded by the young man's unaided exer- tions until he mastered a good business and practical English education. He married in 1841 and settled down to a quiet, independent farmer's life until 1858, when the old whig party made him sheriff of Pulaski county over the vigorous protest of the democrats, and, two years later, the performance was re- peated. In the faithful administration of this office, he earned the soubriquet of " Honest Tom." Whatever he said was re- garded as absolute verity.
At the expiration of his four years' service in this office, the whigs put him on the track and elected him to the legislature, and democracy could well afford to forgive them if this last had been their least offense. When the Federals captured Lit- . tle Rock he had some suspicious misgivings as to the propriety of voluntarily submitting to their jurisdiction, and he took what sheriffs commonly call when a man escapes "leg bail." He had not committed the overt act of treason by taking up arms against the government, but he had winked at it and had imparted good solid chunks of comfort to Jeff. Davis, and felt conscientious scruples about the matter, if required to submit to nice distinctions. How far the Federals might differ with him in the construction of these acts he did not know, nor did he think the public pulse sufficiently cool to justify him in waiting to see. He, therefore, accommodated himself to the convenient
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HON. THOMAS FLETCHER.
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space which lay invitingly beyond the lines and indulged his rising pedal aspirations to " git " and went south, as most men mildly put it, and remained under cover of, non est inventus until the war ended. He returned in 1865 and found his name pigeon holed in the list of non-combatants, and, in 1866, was elected sheriff of Pulaski county under the Murphy govern- ment, and held the office until July, 1868, "when he and all other democrats were reconstructed out of office." After evic. tion from office he commenced the practice of law, and con- tinned it for twelve years in connection with his large planting interests. In 1876, and again in 1878, he was a formidable competitor for the democratic nomination for governor, and made a splendid run. In October, 1885, President Cleveland appointed him marshal for the eastern district of Arkansas, without solicitation, a position he now fills. He is deservedly honored and esteemed by his fellow citizens, and, if he has any . enemies, they have never materialized.
HON. JOSEPH WARREN HOUSE, LITTLE ROCK.
Joseph W. House belongs to that numerous colony of Ten- nesseeans who have immigrated to and shed so much honor on their adopted State. "Jo." is his familiar, his pet name, by which all his friends and acquaintances call him. In this dem- ocratic country of ours, where the fictitious and artificial cre- ation of an order of nobility was buried under the mighty wave of the revolution, which made Washington the noblest and greatest idol of mankind, and severed our connection with the British Empire, the people delight in calling their favorites by pet names. He belongs to another, a very active and nu- merous class of men, who have dominated and controlled the world since man began to make history - "Self-educated, self- made." . Jo. House was born in Hardeman county, Tennessee, June 12, 1847, and came with his father to White county, Arkansas, in 185S. The late civil war was ushered in and closed all the schools before his education was more than commenced. In 1865 he made a crop of cotton which netted him $250; this he utilized to the best possible advantage in educating him- self. After this fund was exhausted, he taught a common · school three sessions, and replenished his educational resources,
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which he again exhausted in accomplishing a good English edu- cation.
The stern integrity, firm resolve and energy of character displayed in these heroic struggles to overcome great difficulties drew to him the confidence and good-will of all acquaintances, and paved the way for an honorable career. He read law with- out the aid of either private or university tutors, and was ad- mitted to the bar at Searcy in May, 1871, and immediately there commenced the practice of his profession. In the same year the electors of White county signalized their confidence in the struggling young man by electing him to represent them in the eighteenth legislature. The same constituency elected him as their delegate to the great reform constitutional con- vention of 1874, which conspicuously signalized its patriotic labors by removing the rank evils which blot and stain our his- tory during the reconstruction period. In 1874 he was elected to the State senate to represent the twenty-seventh district, composed of White and Faulkner counties. In 1878 he was a formidable competitor for the democratic nomination for con- gress and came within two votes of being nominated after a three days' contest in the convention, against his rival, Hon. Poindexter Dunn. President Cleveland appointed him United States district attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas, without his solicitation or any intimation that such honors awaited him until receipt of his commission. In this instance the Jeffersonian doctrine obtained, the office sought the man, and was most worthily conferred. He has fine command of lan- guage, is a logical, terse reasoner, but never reaches out for the , ornate in oratory, though at times there are strikingly eloquent passages in his addresses whether before the legal or popular forum. There is a pleasant mannerism about the man which differs from that of all others, and distinguishes a vigorous in- dividuality, which leaves its impress on all who come in con- tact with him not likely to be forgotten.
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